Any business is looking for high-quality leads. Companies that offer phone consultations to their customers or any other type of service assume that they will communicate with their target audience over the phone.
Therefore, any advertisement that tries to attract more customers to the company should contain a relevant phone number. People who call become leads, and a marketing department needs relevant data regarding the quantity of the leads, the ads that generated most of them, as well as other important information that can be used for campaign optimization.
All those issues are easily covered with any modern call tracking system. There is a complete guide to what call tracking is and how it works. In this article, we will concentrate more on virtual phone numbers and their benefits for any type of business.
What are virtual phone numbers?
It takes time for agents and may be annoying for callers to answer each time the question, “How did you learn about us?” With a call tracking provider, this information will be automatically sent to the call log.
In other words, a separate phone number is assigned to each of the online and offline ads, and when a person dials it, the analytical data in the call log reflects which of the ads triggered the call. Using ordinary numbers is inconvenient, as the price for the connection and a bunch of SIM cards with devices will appear to be quite high. That is why virtual phone numbers are used.
Virtual business numbers can be bought online with the help of call tracking providers. They look like usual numbers, but they do not require any equipment apart from a stable internet connection.
Besides, the virtual characteristic means that you can be located anywhere to receive inbound calls. In other words, your business may be settled in Florida, and you launch online advertising campaigns to attract customers in Florida, but your office is in New York. You do not have to relocate or hire a new team of experts; you just buy a couple of virtual phone numbers with a Florida area code, and your callers will think they are connected to a locally based company.
Benefits of using virtual phone numbers
- Customers’ trust: when people see a local number on a business ad, they think it is somewhere close by and tend to trust it more. Besides, cold calls are more effective from local phone numbers. Call tracking providers offer various types of numbers. Usually, users may choose among toll-free, local, or mobile virtual phone numbers. If there are no restrictions on the quantity of purchased numbers, marketers can choose from a variety of options and test the most productive traffic channel.
- Remote work: you can work from home or have a cozy little office somewhere by the sea. To handle calls, you will need a laptop and an internet connection. If your job is affiliate marketing, you can easily grow your business worldwide while physically staying in one place. You can develop your business or add agents to the account and grow from a sole entrepreneur to a business with a bigger team.
- Easy scalability: the more numbers you have, the more advertising campaigns you can launch. You can probe the market and see which works best for them, be it a direct newsletter, an online banner, a landing page on a social media site, or any type of offline advertising. If you add buyers and vendors to your account, you can manage their work and grow into a complete marketing agency offering turn-key marketing strategies.
- Advanced functionality: usually, call tracking providers do not just supply virtual phone numbers. Other useful features are also included in the plan or offered as additional services. IVR can be used to automate part of the requests or transfer calls to different company divisions. Call routing is a useful feature for arranging the working schedules of the agents and adhering to business hours. This is especially relevant for companies working in several time zones. Call recording is a tool that allows managers to listen more attentively to the customers’ requests and to evaluate the team’s performance at the same time. The call log’s analytical data enables real-time changes to current campaigns to increase conversions and sales.
Wrap-up
Virtual phone numbers are useful for businesses dealing with customers via the phone. They allow the business to grow without much risk, monitor the results, and make important decisions based on the real outcomes, avoiding any kind of guessing games.
